NIH R01 · 2024
The role of optic nerve lamina region stem cells in age-related optic nerve disease
The most common age-associated optic nerve (ON)-related causes of vision loss are non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). Optic nerve head (ONH) defects contribute to NAION and POAG susceptibility, but the mechanisms responsible for this are incompletely understood, contributing to a lack of effective treatments. My lab recently discovered that the optic nerve-laminar region (ONLR) within the ONH, contains a CNS neural stem cell/neural progenitor cell (NSC/NPC) niche which is depleted during aging. Increased CNS-NPC activity has been shown to improve baseline CNS activity in aged mice, and NPC depletion impedes CNS recovery following…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.